No, not every introvert is scared to speak in public

As a coach I regularly get questions from introverts about fear of public speaking. They often link this to their introversion, but nothing could be further from the truth. Public fear is caused by a completely different part of your personality and the good news is that you can do something about it.

Introverts are often less talkative when they are in a larger group of people. All those people provide quite a few stimuli and introverts also prefer to give others space. But this is not to say that they would all be afraid to speak in public. In fact, some introverts go wild when they can talk about a topic they know a lot about.

So why is it that we so often combine fear of public speaking with introversion? There is actually the same fallacy behind this as when you combine shyness and introversion. The fact that an introvert does not take up that much space has to do with his sensitivity to stimuli, while a shy person or a person with fear of public speaking is afraid of rejection. He or she has had a bad experience with this in the past and therefore developed a certain fear. This fear comes back again as soon as that person ends up in a similar situation.

Inner critic

For someone with fear of public speaking, the so-called inner critic goes to work very hard when he or she is standing in front of a group. He says things like "they don't like you anyway" or "who are you really?" The speaker then projects those thoughts onto his audience, making it suddenly feel like a very hostile audience. Not an ideal situation if you want to tell your story calmly.

If you look at it from the personality theory, then fear of public speaking falls under the dimension neuroticism, or emotional stability. It is separated from the dimension of introversion and extraversion. That means that there are also extroverts who suffer from public anxiety. So it is not said that someone with a fear of public speaking is necessarily introverted or extroverted.

You can learn to approach the inner critic differently, making it easier to recognize him and give him a less prominent place. This can help you reduce your fear of public speaking or even grow over it. Here too, practice makes perfect.

Want to know more about this? Please do not hesitate to contact me!